A Year Of Success And Awards For NHS Direct, UK

Main Category: Public Health
Article Date: 02 Aug 2008 - 1:00 PDT

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In its 10th year of operation NHS Direct recorded it best ever performance and also scooped a number of awards. Not only did the world leader in the delivery of telephone and web-based healthcare achieve ambitious performance targets but we continued to deliver a high quality patient service and develop innovative new services.

NHS Direct's 2007/08 Annual Report & Accounts, published today, outlines how new internal systems, training programmes and improved performance contributed to this achievement.

Matt Tee, NHS Direct Chief Executive, said: "A national newspaper described us a couple of months ago as a 'national treasure' and more recently as, 'one of the key achievements of the last 60 years of the NHS'. Each month we provide hundreds of thousands of people with high quality, evidence-based health information and advice. There is no doubt about it - the service provided by NHS Direct is now recognised as an international benchmark."

2007/08 saw our best ever performance since NHS Direct began and achievement of all Department of Health performance targets in relation to access, quality and finance:

- 93% of all calls were answered within 60 seconds and 98% of the most urgent calls received a nurse assessment within 20 minutes.

- 50% of all calls were completed within NHS Direct without the need for onward referral to another healthcare professional and emergency and urgent referrals reduced from 32.2% to 25.4% of all calls.

- Last year we took almost 5 million calls on our 0845 number.

- The effectiveness and popularity of our website speaks for itself - monthly visits increased 59% to 3.5 million in March 08, with over 30 million visits during the year- a tenfold increase since 2002.

- Received more than a third less complaints than in the previous year (551 in 07/08 compared to 981 in 06/07), and recorded over three times as many compliments as complaints (1800 in 07/08 compared to 938 in 06/07). The adverse incident rate also fell from 0.29 in 06/07 to 0.18 per 10,000 in 07/08.

- For the fourth year in a row we generated a surplus - £5.1 million in 2007/08 and delivered planned savings of £8.5 million.

Not only did we deliver outstanding performance on our core service, the services we delivered for the NHS continued to break new ground in a bid to meet the needs of patients:

- NHS Direct was commissioned by more than 90 Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) to support patient access to dental cover, particularly out-of-hours.
- NHS Direct provided the 'access and assess' element of GP out-of-hours services for over 12% of the population.
- -An appointment reminder service provided to Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust halved missed outpatient appointments in just five weeks.

In 2007/08 our services stretched across the UK when the Department of Health asked us to design, build and deliver the UK-wide helpline for pandemic flu. FluLine which will provide patients rapid access to an initial assessment, advice, triage and where appropriate, authorisation of antiviral medicine treatment. The service builds on NHS Direct's expertise of running large scale health contact centres, of developing clinical algorithms and of delivering services over multiple communication channels.

Awards

In July 2007 Birmingham OwnHealth won the Healthcare Partnership Award at the national Communiqué Awards, which celebrate the best in medical education and PR within the health sector. A few months later in February 2008, the service won the regional round in the 'Inequalities in Health' category of the NHS Health & Social Care award, and is shortlisted for the national award.

NHS Direct was also pleased to receive an award for best dental team in the North West at the Dentistry Awards, 2007. In collaboration with Rocky Lane Dental Practice, NHS Direct provides emergency out of hours dental cover to a consortium of PCTs across the Manchester area.

Finally, building on last year's excellent performance and in a bid to continue to make a difference to the lives of people in England 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, NHS Direct will be running an advertising campaign to emphasise 'We're Here'. The advertising, which will run from 21 July until 14 October, will highlight that NHS Direct is everywhere - whatever your health worries, wherever you are, you can reach us.

NHS Direct is applying to become an NHS Foundation Trust. To find out more and get involved by becoming a member, visit http://www.nhsdirect.nhs.uk/foundationtrust.

¹ Information prescriptions are a source of key information on services and care that is seamlessly and formally integrated into the care process.

- NHS Direct handles over 22,000 calls a day. That's over 8 million calls a year.

- The NHS Direct Online website (http://www.nhsdirect.nhs.uk) receives around 30 million visits a year.

- NHS Direct Interactive is available to around 18.9 million households with either Sky Digital TV or Freeview, 85% of all TV homes.

- NHS Direct employs over 3,000 staff, over 1,200 of whom are trained nurses.

- NHS Direct receives approximately £150 million funding annually from the Department of Health to run the 0845 4647 telephone service, the website and digital TV services.

NHS Direct